According to a 'Sunday Independent' report, clinical trials conducted in Johannesburg and Cape Town have shown that despite poverty and scarce clinical resources, antiretrovirals can be used successfully by poor people. These findings come after the government's repeated refusal to offer antiretroviral therapy to all saying the majority of South Africans were poor and would misuse the drugs.

In a letter sent to today to Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed deep concern about the murder of Alegria Gustavo, a journalist for the local branch of Rádio Nacional de Angola (RNA) in the central province of Huambo.

Over the past 300 years, humans have dramatically transformed the land surface of the Earth, changing vegetation, reshaping hills and valleys, and altering the course of rivers. In doing so, they have set in motion a scenario of global environmental change with impacts that promise to be at least as severe as global climate change, scientists reported today at a meeting in Amsterdam.

Speaking on the occasion of World Population Day, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan linked the growing population to ecological stress on the planet's resources. Calling attention to deforestation, pollution and carbon dioxide emissions, he said, "Our ecological footprints on the earth are heavier than ever before."